Page 87

I open my eyes and stare at the tiny sprout rising from the soil, two pale green leaves pushing through the dark earth. It is an absurdly small thing to feel this excited about.

It grew.

Boone planted it, carefully pressing the soil around the cherry pit and setting the pot in the place he’d chosen for it. After that, checking it became part of his routine. Every morning when he came into the greenhouse, he crouched beside the pot to inspect the soil for the smallest sign of green. Then he moved on to everything else that demanded his attention.

And now it has sprouted.

Now.

I stare at it, irritation coming so quickly that I nearly knock the pot from the table. Of course it would grow now. Of course the damned thing would wait until Boone was gone to push itself through the soil, leaving me to stand here looking at something that belongs to him when he isn’t here to see it.

I grip the edge of the table instead, fingers curling hard around the wood until the joints ache.

Boone would have been insufferable about this.

He would have found me wherever I was in the castle, probably talking by the time he entered the room and dragging me back here like I had nothing more important to do than admire two leaves sticking out of a pot. He would have smiled at me. He would have told me he knew it would grow despite never knowing any such thing, then checked it ten times prior to dinner to make certain it was still there.

The greenhouse is silent.

I hate it.

I straighten abruptly and walk away from the table, but there is nowhere to go that does not contain him. His gloves are still beside the rosemary because he never remembered to put them away. The little watering can he preferred sits under the shelves despite there being three larger ones available. One of the chairs remains angled toward the windows because Boone liked sitting there when the snow came down heavily enough to obscure the trees.

Everything is exactly where he left it.

Everything except him.

I shove the chair under the table harder than necessary, the legs scraping across the stone floor. The noise fills the greenhouse for a few seconds, then disappears.

“Fuck.”

The word does nothing.

I leave the greenhouse, but the corridor is worse.

The castle has returned to precisely what it was prior to Boone’s arrival: quiet, orderly, predictable. There are no footsteps where there should not be footsteps, no doors left partially open, no dishes abandoned somewhere because Boone became distracted halfway through eating. No one misses dinner. No one argues with me. No one touches my arm without thinking, then looks startled when I stare at his hand.

This is what I wanted.

For years, this was exactly what I wanted.

I stop in the middle of the corridor, staring toward the staircase without knowing why I came this way or where I intended to go. I have spent my entire life alone without ever feeling lost inside my own home.

Boone managed to change that in a matter of weeks, and the longer he spent here, the worse it became.

I turn and go back to the greenhouse because apparently I have nowhere else to be. When I reach the table, the tiny cherry tree is still there, indifferent to the fact that the man who planted it will never know he succeeded.

For one ugly moment, I want to destroy it.

My hand closes around the pot. I could throw it against the wall. I could watch the ceramic shatter and the soil scatter across the floor, crush those two ridiculous leaves under my boot and remove one more thing Boone left behind for me to stumble over.

For a moment, I seriously consider it.

Then—

I set the pot carefully back where it was.

Boone would hate me for killing it.